Rock News

LISTEN: 'Came Back Haunted' from new album

(Yahoo!) - Following a visceral performance on September 10, 2009 at the Wiltern Theater in Los Angeles, Trent Reznor put his pretty hate machine, Nine Inch Nails, on ice. For more than three years, the band was in a state of suspended animation. Then, in the wee hours of June 6, 2013 Nine Inch Nails came back – or more specifically they "Came Back Haunted."

The first track from Nine Inch Nails' upcoming ninth studio release, Hesitation Marks, "Came Back Haunted" is ominous, catchy and riddled with angst. Driven by a syncopated beat and dissonant keyboard sounds that contrast with the overlapping synth melodies, the song builds in density and intensity until it hits the chorus. And while there are waves of gauzy guitars in the first half of the five-minute track, the more aggressive guitars weave in and out intermittently from the mid-point of the song until its conclusion.

In the last minute of the song, all the instruments drop out but the thumping electronic drums; and Reznor half-sings, half chants, "Just can’t stop/Came back ha-ha-haunted." The final keyboard melody is, perhaps, an intentional nod to the minor-key closing melody in Nine Inch Nails "Closer," the most popular song from their career-breaking album The Downward Spiral.